“Mainstream” media are not biased. They are propagandists.

April 30, 2013

by George Landrith

For years, media bias has been hotly debated. Let me settle this here and now. The mainstream media is not biased. Bias implies some level of subtly in the prejudice. There is nothing subtle about the media’s blatant partiality which actually reaches the level of dishonest propaganda.

There is an unmistakeable trend in play – some evil and/or demented person kills and injures a large number of innocent people and the extreme Left and the “mainstream” media (but I repeat myself) blame conservatives for the evil-doer’s actions. This is an almost reflexive reaction for the media and the Left.

In 2011, I was on a liberal television news show to defend conservatives from charges that they were responsible for Jared Loughner’s rampage in Tucson, Arizona that killed six and severely injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. To the host of the show, it was self-evident that Loughner was motivated by conservatism and/or conservatives.

The only problem with the host’s theory is there was, and is, absolutely no evidence to support it. The shooter was not a conservative. Loughner’s friends and writings showed him to be decidedly “left wing.”

After the Aurora, Colorado movie theatre shooting in 2012, news sources reported that the shooter was a member of the Tea Party. That not only proved to be entirely false, but there was no reliable evidence to support it. It was pure speculation.

The Left loves to play this blame game and loves to call their ideological opponents vial names because they seek to silence and delegitimize their adversaries. They call their opponents vial name racists without the slightest evidence. Hence, the joke – a racist is someone who is winning an political argument with a liberal.

When I’ve debated climate change and point out the simple fact there has been no discernible warming in more than 16 years, they call me a “flat-earther.” They don’t make a counter point or even try to explain why they think I’m mistaken. They simply call names.

The reaction of much of the Left and the so-called mainstream media to the Boston Marathon bombing demonstrates that they are fundamentally dishonest. They launch false and fraudulent attacks in hopes of gaining a political advantage. They reflexively blame their political adversaries for violence and tragedy in hopes of delegitimizing them. It is slander, pure and simple.

After the bombing, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said, “Normally, domestic terrorists, people tend to be on the far right.” Then he called them “just extremists.” How does Matthews come to the conclusion that “normally, domestic terrorists … tend to be on the far right?” He doesn’t say.

CNN’s Peter Bergen said the bombing attack might have been perpetrated by “right-wing extremists.” There was zero evidence to support his speculation. He could have just as logically posited that the attack was perpetrated by extremist penguins from Antarctica. But he predictably chose to blame and malign only the right.

David Axelrod, President Obama’s campaign manager, now employed with MSNBC, opined that the President was being cautious in his early public statements about the bombing because terrorism is a loaded term and “we really don’t know who did this — it was tax day, it was tax day.” This was a not so subtle attempt to tag the bombing attack on the right who often use tax day as an occasion to call for lower taxes and less government spending.

It may come as news to Mr. Axelrod, but many decent, law-abiding Americans believe that taxes are too high and that government spends too much. One can believe these things without having any desire to bomb anyone. But that is the fantastic leap that Axelrod and his fellow leftists often make – if you don’t vote for their candidate, you’re a racist; and if you disagree with their policy prescriptions, your views foment terrorism and violence.

Wolf Blitzer said it it might be significant that the bombing attack happened on “Patriot’s Day.” CNN went on to claim that pressure cooker bombs are a hallmark of right-wingers. In the past few years, there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of pressure cooker type bombs made and as nearly as I can tell, they were almost exclusively made by al Qaeda or Taliban affiliated terrorists.

NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston told listeners that April is a big month for right-wing terrorism. However, homegrown terrorism is notable for its rarity and it certainly isn’t the exclusive domain of the Right.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof tweeted, “[The Boston] Explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking appointment.” Mr. Kristof implies that if only ATF’s director had been approved, there would have been no bombing – a laughably absurd hypothesis. Kristof’s purpose was to slime Republicans with blame for the bombing.

David Sirota wrote an article published in Salon entitled “Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American.” Most Americans weren’t rooting for the bomber suspects to be anything other than caught and made to answer for their crimes.

The “mainstream” media and the extreme Left speculated and hoped that the bombers were angry anti-tax, conservatives because then the bombing could be used to discredit conservatives and conservatism in general. Typically, the goal of the Left is not to win a rational debate on the merits, but rather to discredit and silence the opposition with smears and lies.

It must have been a crushing blow for the Left to find out that the bombers were radicalized Muslims from Chechenia, not angry conservatives protesting high taxes.

It is time for the extreme Left to stop falsely blaming the rest of America for the violence of a few fanatics and crazies. People are responsible for their own actions.

If some nut-job decides to kill people picnicking at a park and it turns out he has an Obama bumper sticker on his car, it does not mean that Obama is to blame or that his political views encouraged the murders. The media would grasp that obvious truth. But if the killer had a “Don’t Tread on Me” bumper sticker, the press would see it as central to the crime and slime conservatives as being responsible.

This isn’t a matter of subtle bias. It is overtly one-sided and dishonest. And any so-called journalist who engages in this shady practice is nothing more, nor less than a propagandist.

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George Landrith is the president of Frontiers of Freedom, a public policy think tank devoted to promoting a strong national defense, free markets, individual liberty, and constitutionally limited government. Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia. You can follow George on Twitter @GLandrith.

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